The overhead of explicit mental models means their terrible for any complex decision making process. Try an apply them to an extremely well studied problem like say chess and you still get stomped by people with even basic skills. Less obviously all real world problems you need to actually consider end up being complex with a huge number of subtle interactions.
What’s actually useful 99.9% of the time is either external models that can run on computers, or implicit models developed by synthesis of knowledge and practice.
PS: Mental models can be useful in extremely stressful situations where there is no need to act quickly or come up with complex solutions. There is a hurricane forecasted to hit this area in 5 days doesn’t need a great solution just a set of reasonable choices.
What’s actually useful 99.9% of the time is either external models that can run on computers, or implicit models developed by synthesis of knowledge and practice.
PS: Mental models can be useful in extremely stressful situations where there is no need to act quickly or come up with complex solutions. There is a hurricane forecasted to hit this area in 5 days doesn’t need a great solution just a set of reasonable choices.